The Rudolf Steiner Archive

51. “Paths to Weimar”

Speech at a literary gathering honoring Friedrich Lienhard

[“Temple of Fulfillment”

The blue of the dome arches over a red wall;
And in that blue are stars woven in gold.
Twelve masters stand in the circular colonnade
And direct the power of their gaze from afar
Toward the thirteenth, who stands before the gray altar
In the silver robe of the Guide
And gathers twelvefold powers within the Giver.

Thus the sun travels through the signs of the zodiac
And receives twelve distinct powers,
To then send them forth into the world;
Thus power exchanges with power at all ends
Of the cosmos and of the small human life;
And not even the least shines and works in vain—
Every star can reach the sun’s goal.

All for one—and one for all!
This wondrous hall is rhythmic:
For each of these gently curving arches
Is drawn over the head of every master,
Who stands beneath it, noble as marble;
The space is filled with a breath-like undulation
Of purified soul forces, strong and delicate.

Whoever enters the spell of this temple of the sun,
Will be struck by the double number seven
Of the symbolic columns that surround the hall
All around with perfect symmetry;
Like a dove, he feels himself soaring above
The round outline of the white dome window:
And the sacred ray falls upon the altar.

What was only sensed may take shape here,
Fulfillment dwells in the curvature of this edifice;
The urge to wander is calmed into peace,
And it heals the earthly wound.
Escaping base, nocturnal forces,
The consecrated one sees this place as his destiny,
Where heavenly healing awaits him.

And he beholds the true archetype of all things, The world’s tangled play becomes harmony; The blood of the Cross appears as roses, Upon which, crystal-clear from the skylight, A note falls—the sound of the spheres’ melody— Which fills this lofty space with beauty And gently enfolds every harsh edge...

You have long been drawn to this temple, You long to look within and pray. Yet you still linger by the rosebeds Of the outer world, along the yew wall, And cannot free yourself from what resounds outside And drowns out the very existence of that temple—

When you have matured, you will enter it.

“Christ on Mount Tabor”

Beyond the tribulation,
Shining with the power of grace,
You stand, a figure of the sun,
And there, in golden light,
Transient suffering is transformed.
Thus you are beyond
And yet within reach:
For we,
As often as we rise from the waters of tribulation
Just as you rose—
Bathed in sunlight, we stand beside you,
Armored in gold, transformed into light.

Behold, thus did you once stand,
When you walked in the garments of the earth,
Casting ahead the radiance of future glory,
Majestic upon Mount Tabor.
They conversed with you
The exalted masters of antiquity:
Elijah and Moses.
But beneath you, in shadow and heaviness,
The streets and markets of mankind slumbered.
Then emerged from you
The light, bound to earth, the eternal light:
As if for a bath, you cast off
The earthly garments,
The Rabbi, the Galilean
And on Mount Tabor stood
The radiant God-man!
Stepped out of the veils and stood,
Stood like a pillar of sacrificial flame
Towering on the nocturnal Mount Tabor!

Then they drew near, sparkling like you,
The great ones of antiquity,
Stepped forth from a veiling cloud of light,
Took shape and stood in splendor
On the summit of Mount Tabor.
And they exchanged radiant words with you,
Greeted you from among the blessed,
Filled the ecstatic disciples with the power of flame
And stepped back again
Into the deeply mysterious moonlit night.

But you, Master, and your disciples
Silent, radiant; a knowing smile
Upon a face still glowing with light,
Walked down once more to the people in darkness.]

My dear friends!

[ 1 ] You are all surely deeply moved at this very moment by the two magnificent poems that have just resonated within your souls, and if we reveal anything in the true sense [as] theosophical art, then we may well say: Something like what has just resonated within our souls belongs to genuine, true theosophical art, theosophical poetry. When one allows these poems to take effect upon oneself, a thought may arise that is just as liberating and redeeming as it is comforting, encouraging, and uplifting: It comes from an independent source. the poet of such works has been driven by his soul to be with us—to our deep satisfaction—and to feel and experience with us in our gatherings the spiritual life of the present—and this is indeed how we may describe theosophical life. And the thought that can come to one as liberating as it is encouraging and redeeming is this: that precisely such art is—the word sounds abstract, but let us feel it—genuine proof of the inner spirituality of life in our time, of the spiritual demands, in the deepest sense, of theosophical feeling and theosophical thinking.

[ 2 ] Due to time constraints, I am unable today to discuss—as I would certainly like to and will likely do on another occasion—Friedrich Lienhard’s poetic style from a theosophical perspective. But I would like to allude briefly at this moment to the feelings that are surely present in every soul—and I say “allude” precisely because I feel quite strongly that when such a work of the spirit resonates with my soul, [it demonstrates] the legitimacy and necessity of our Theosophical Movement. And because this aspect and this justification of the theosophical movement appear to me particularly frequently in such moments, I am therefore merely expressing a very sincere feeling when I speak of the heartfelt and profound joy I have experienced as a result of the poet Friedrich Lienhard speaking to us today himself in a large gathering of our theosophical friends. And you will not hold it against me as a personal matter, because I believe [that] something objective can emerge from this when, starting from the personal—I would say, just as the words inspire me at this very moment—I choose to make the transition to what I would like to say to you, what I [would like] to say at this very moment.

[ 3 ] I would like to say that, in a certain way, I was able—and privileged—to shake hands twice with our esteemed poet Friedrich Lienhard along the path—a path that is as natural and self-evident to me as it surely is to him. My dear friends, some of you know that I attempted—drawing on the great classical era of the turn of the century, the early nineteenth century], which Friedrich Lienhard has just so exceptionally vividly and succinctly extolled—to speak of the matters of intellectual life, drawing on this era of [illegible words]. That was, after all, back in the 1880s, and then came what I must, must call—not only in a figurative sense, but in the true sense of the word—“my path to Weimar,” the path to Weimar that led me to work for six and a half years within Weimar itself, within this Thuringian city of poets, carrying out my work every day, with occasional exceptions, at the Goethe and Schiller Archive.

[ 4 ] Life in classical Weimar at that time was different from what it had been a century earlier. People lived what had been—a century earlier, and again in connection with that century—a time of resonance; they lived it in memory. Of course, I cannot speak of the details of this memory, nor of the characteristic feelings that stirred the soul at that time, when Schiller’s handwritten manuscript appeared before my eyes—the very thing Schiller had infused into the spiritual life of the new era. Nor can I speak of the feelings that stirred the soul when that manuscript lay before my eyes—the one you have just heard about, which had only been completed shortly before Goethe’s death as the second part of his Faust.

[ 5 ] It is something quite unique when [one], I might say, lives intimately within the living culture of memories of such a great era. And back then, one certainly lived intimately, intimately connected—[including] myself—with the sometimes extraordinarily revealing, already significant documents, let’s say, Goethe’s studies of nature, those great, powerful studies that, transcending the observation of nature, point toward theosophical higher philosophy of the spirit, indeed, spiritual contemplation. It is peculiar to explore [this]—and it was even more so back then than it is now, when all these things are in print, whereas at that time they existed only in manuscript form—to explore these memories of that great era in the modern evolution of humanity. Of course, I cannot go into details, but perhaps I can hint at one thing or another with a few brief strokes—because it seems to me to be supplementary, although I [only] wish to indicate to what extent it seems supplementary to me— [to] what was outlined in concise strokes regarding the 1880s [illegible words], as Friedrich Lienhard said upon the completion of Faust. It seems to me to be a clear addition. Now, however, times have changed with regard to [illegible words]. But if we recall the word in the [illegible word], then we pick up the thread. In the 1990s of the last century, something still emerged that brought this memory to life, thus linking history with that of the great figures of the 1880s who have been identified.

[ 6 ] In the radiance of Goethe’s soul, in the light of Goethe’s spirit, that romanticized orphan—who, as we know, lived from her youth onward—still lived on, becoming known to the German people and German literature under the name of Bettina von Arnim. The son-in-law of Bettina, who—in her correspondence with Goethe—which is more authentic than readers today believe— [who published this] under the title “Correspondence with a Child”—the [son-in-law] of that brilliant creator of a Goethe monument, this son-in-law of Bettina’s—was Herman Grimm, who [illegible word] had already been pursuing, and this man, devoted to Goethe, was like a reminder of her whenever he came to Weimar.

[ 7 ] And I myself was allowed to say [illegible words], and that I was able to spend wonderful hours [with] what Herman Grimm [told me] in conversations I was able to have with him alone; in conversations on the way from Weimar to Tiefurt, [as] he spoke of the great [plan], [and] how it did not come about [illegible words]; the [illegible words] that captures this and brings the times of Goethe’s legacy to life—[that] is the imagination that [illegible words] traverses the ages and still [gives] them the strength that flows through individual human beings.

[ 8 ] Herman Grimm, who was truly devoted to Goethe and still lived entirely in Goethe’s tradition—who was not a man of the new era—was, once again, something entirely different from the memories evoked by the accumulation of Goethe’s, Schiller’s, and other relics in the Goethe-Schiller Archive in Weimar. Herman Grimm, however, was something entirely different. One could sense the symbolic significance when he passed through Weimar—it was during the time when he was working on the [illegible word] treatise on the “Tasso”—to also examine passages from the “Tasso” manuscript. I saw how [other] visiting scholars pored over Goethe’s manuscripts, [gap in the notes] sitting day after day poring over the [manuscripts]. Herman Grimm spoke of how, while he was working on his Tasso, he had the Tasso manuscript brought to him, sat down, opened it to a few pages, looked at them for about three minutes, then pushed [them] aside. “Aha,” he said; that was all he took from the manuscripts—that was the extent of his immediate philological work. Truly no longer than three minutes. He lived and breathed the Goethe era and Goethe’s work and took no pleasure in manuscripts or posthumous relics. That is why it was he, as I said, who carried on the memory of Goethe that had carried over from those 1880s into our time. It had an impact on that era, back when I myself [illegible words] was allowed to [illegible words] recall classical memories, [illegible word], and many other things as well.

[ 9 ] Above all, however, there is something that lingers—something Friedrich Lienhard described, drawing on Goethe and Schiller, not on Hölderlin or Novalis. And something true found its way into—what I would like to call—this peculiar, isolated Thuringian island, into this seclusion: on both a small and a large scale, one was connected to something that, in a [illegible word] sense, had actually died out. But it was a memory, a living memory, something that really showed one back then: just as things had once been before and at the beginning of the nineteenth century, so they had since passed away.

[ 10 ] One could also find this deeply painful. I had spent a great deal of time with the director of the Goethe-Schiller Archive, who had devoted almost his entire life to a different kind of Classical tradition—the Herder tradition—for he is the editor of the major philological edition of Herder’s works. Sometimes—though there were other moments as well—one could sense, precisely in this man, this director of the Goethe-Schiller Archive, the isolation of being immersed in that great era, the [illegible words]. And I know, of course, that many explanations would be necessary if I were to use this word here and were to explain it, but I want to use it nonetheless. Perhaps then some will also understand the “consuming” nature of memory—the consuming image of a great era on posterity, which could not so easily bring itself to clarity regarding certain matters and [which] could also so easily become frivolous—in its following and retreating—yet still abandon this immediately great past. That is why it pained me so deeply when—it was a long time after I had been in Weimar; I still have [illegible passage] in my memory of the hours I had spent with Suphan—the news came that this man, lonely in his memory, who on the one hand possessed only [illegible word] tenderness, was so attached [to] what came his way from the relics of the Goethe-Schiller era. And the other thing, which one can understand if one knew the man well: There were moments [illegible word] of immensely meaningful love and devotion to Grand Duchess Sophie of Weimar, the editor of the great Weimar Edition of Goethe and the founder of the Goethe-Schiller Archive. There is something consuming about immersing oneself in relics. For this man, the death of the Grand Duchess [Sophie] was a great loss. And it was as if, at that very moment, connected to this, the knowledge of what one might perceive as memory—or as that which lived on in the memory of the great era of modern evolution—when, in 1911, the shattering news arrived of Suphan’s suicide, which [illegible words] brought things into their proper inner context; [One] can sense much through such signs—about the consequences, about the developmental impulses of the time, of our time, which likely manifests most fully in its deepest, most significant forces precisely where it often withdraws into itself, deeper and more isolated from all external activity.

[ 11 ] And once I had already joined the positive theosophical movement, I was struck—I would say in a deeply blissful way, as memories of my journey to Weimar flashed before me—by those beautiful, those most significant booklets, Wege nach Weimar (Paths to Weimar), which Friedrich Lienhard had published for a time. What did these booklets not contain! They contained, one might say, all that is beautiful and great from various parts of the archives—things that can lead the soul in our present time to all that is great and glorious, which can be shown to be directly connected to the great Classical period of modern evolution.

[ 12 ] And through a refined, meaningful selection—one that possesses a quality I shall describe shortly—these booklets offered what can pave the way to Weimar for people today. One might have wished that quite a few souls, holding these booklets in their hands, had sought these “Paths to Weimar.” These “Paths” were traced in a very special way, in a—to use the word in its spiritual sense—personal way, that is to say, in such a way that the person who compiled this selection and these descriptions showed one, through the very act of recalling them, how intimately and personally he is connected to all the details, how deeply his entire soul embraces every detail, and how deeply, at the same time, an artist and poet of the present reaches out to the modern soul with these “Paths to Weimar.”

[ 13 ] And when one looks up from these “Paths to Weimar” toward the writings of Friedrich Lienhard—and the progression, so to speak, of theosophical thought has, after all, repeatedly brought about [so that] [illegible word] much attention could be drawn—and indeed will be drawn—to [illegible word], especially from our perspective; our thoughts have led us to point out the significant [works] “Wieland” and also the truly unique novel “Oberlin.”

[ 14 ] But there are many, many things I could mention. I simply wish to inspire you to engage deeply with these poems. You will absorb much that is beautiful, grand, and magnificent—things that will lift your soul—and all of this will be carried by a feeling, by a thought: the thought of how true it is that we cast an aura of the spiritual—from which we draw directly—over our present sensory culture, something that has been emphasized so often. Are not such poems—which, in a natural way, unite the poet with our movement—living proof of this—and now I want to draw on an Eastern saying to arrive at this point, namely, poetic imagination—of how this spiritual aura hovers around us like a grace and is present? We must [take] as living proof of spiritual life in the present whatever prepares the poet [for] this. After Weimar, I myself had to [illegible word]—prompted by what naturally presented itself to me—take the path into the direct theosophical movement; I was able and permitted to extend my hand to the poet Friedrich Lienhard.

[ 15 ] Well, when the individual issues arrived at my home thanks to his kindness—Wege nach Weimar— [which] evoked blissful memories of my own journey to Weimar—I may well express my heartfelt satisfaction at being able to extend a hand to the poet Friedrich Lienhard on theosophical paths, since he found his way to theosophy via the “Path to Weimar,” and [may] rekindle that moment in my own memory; I have [illegible words] memory of the path to Weimar, of the path into the theosophical movement, and if I may further express my very special joy—specifically [illegible words]—it is that here [in her work] poetry unites so freely with spiritual insight, without, it seems, striving for anything dogmatic [...]. We will not only say that we receive theosophical poetry when, for example, the words of the Bhagavad [Gita] ring in our ears, but we also understand our task in the present as a genuinely theosophical poetic sensibility when we are allowed to hear something such as what we were able to hear today.

[ 16 ] What is significant about these poems is that they, in turn, were forged from the living spirit that could be sought once the 1880s had become a memory in the course of recent evolution. Yes, then came the materialistic era, the 1880s of materialism; those 1880s actually also encompass the years I myself spent in Weimar [gap in the transcript]), when what the purely magical and the aesthetic [of] idealism [illegible word] had infused was, in a sense, nothing more than a memory. But everything will come alive again; it will happen because the people of the present will draw from the same living sources in a new remembrance, just as those classics themselves drew from the living sources of life in accordance with their own time. How much more does Theosophy already live in Wieland the Smith than, for example, Schiller or Goethe were able to incorporate into their poetry in a limited sense during their time. Esteemed audience! How [much] more accurately and precisely does theosophy live in these [poems]. Thus we may say: It is precisely such places as we have today that may inscribe into our souls—in a comforting, encouraging, and liberating way—the utterly unique, the special, and the fruitful essence of the spiritual words from the spiritual heights. That is what I wanted to tell you. And now, it was [my intention] just now—I would say, more out of empathy—to speak to you about these moods at this moment, rather than to direct your thoughts in a more [illegible word] elevated way toward [the] great loner whom Hölderlin sang of.

[ 17 ] It came more naturally to me, and so you must forgive me if, starting from a personal perspective, I expressed a thought at this moment—one that I had already intended to share before these two poems were read to us here. The thought of addressing these very words to you first occurred to me just as the final lines of Friedrich Lienhard’s two poems had faded away, and there will be an opportunity to speak further about this “Aegis” in connection with our lectures, and so you will also hear [some] of what I wanted to say to you; but I also felt compelled to say something to you, inspired by the moment, as it lay on my heart.